MOC: Royal Netherlands Navy SH-14D Lynx

31 posts in this topic

In recent months I've been building more and more models with a Dutch theme. You may have seen some of them in the model team forum. For little more than a week I've been working on the latest MOC, a Royal Netherlands Navy SH-14D Lynx helicopter. This type of helicopter is used for anti-submarine warfare, for supporting the Royal Dutch Marines and for Search-And-Rescue above the North Sea. The helicopter was designed to operate from the small landing decks aboard frigates and in order to store it inside the hangars aboard ships, it has folding rotors and a folding tail, as does my model. The model has a few more working features, such as opening cockpit doors, opening sliding doors in the side and a rescue winch that can be extended from the cabin.

It is built to the same scale as most of my larger cars (1/22), which makes it larger than my other aircraft and helicopter models.

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I wasn't sure whether I'd post this under 'other themes' because it is military or under 'model team'. That theme had some excellent helicopters in it too and was a great influence on my building style in general. It's not a Technic model, but it obviously uses some Technic elements to make things work. The various markings are so important for the look of the real machine that I felt I had to add them. Unfortunately I saw no purist solution to make them happen. For a long time I made stickers for my models by hand, but in the last months I've been using a computer graphics program and an inkjet printer. It gives them a more coherent and slightly neater look than I could manage with pens and paper.

Adding folding rotor blades and a folding tail was comparatively easy and something I've done before. The effect always looks pretty dramatic, which is a plus. It also means that I can easily fit it on a shelf

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Like the others I am again completely impressed by this wonderful creation. The level of detail you manage to keep up through the entire creation is again very admirable! My favourite section of the helicopter is the transparent-green roof.

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Did you know that the Sea Lynx is the fastest helicopter in the world? Great job on building it. Your models never cease to amaze me.

The world speed record (roughly 400 km/h) for conventional helicopters is held by a modified Lynx AH1. Technically that was an army version. Without wanting to get too technical, one of the factors limiting the forward speed of a helicopter is a condition known as retreating blade stall. The weird paddle-shaped ends on the rotor blades were designed to delay this from happening. The record-braking machine was one of the test aircraft for this type of blade, so it's fair to say it worked! Since then the blades have been (retro-)fitted to many more Lynxes, including the Dutch Navy ones. I'm not sure they can do 400 km/h, but they're probably quite fast.

Wow, what a great moc.

"Zorrug dat juh er baaij komt, Baaij duh marienuh"

It's funny that you should mention this classic song by Dorus. I recently saw it on <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH8OBeNaCmE>youtube</a>. A few words of warning: once you get it into your head, it's almost impossible to get it out again!

Oh WOW!

That Heli is Amazing!

I really like the folding tail and rotors..

The colours make a really nice combo.

There is just, so much detaile on that beast...im just speechless!

Great job Ralph_S.

CommanderFox

I always felt that the real helicopters were quite attractive looking, with the contrast between the greys and the colourful roundel. I built it out of dark bley and old grey by the way.

Ralph_S strikes again! I am overwhelmed by the detail on this thing. I love the folding rotors

Being able to reach this level of detail is one of the reasons for building it bigger than most of my other helicopter models. The Lynx is a fairly small helicopter and I feared I couldn't do it justice on a smaller scale.

Awesome. If Lego made models like these I would buy them, definately. The model detail is amazing, especially that the use of Lego bricks since they are square-ish. Awesome model.

Trying to recreate a non squarish shape with rectangular bricks is, of course, a major part of the fun.

edit:

Hello Ralph!

Like the others I am again completely impressed by this wonderful creation. The level of detail you manage to keep up through the entire creation is again very admirable! My favourite section of the helicopter is the transparent-green roof.

A pleasure to look at, and I am not finished yet.

Cheers,

~ Christopher

They are probably slightly too green, but the windows are tinted and I quite liked a little splash of colour. Call it artistic license

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Very well done. The little highlights of color are what make this MOC really well done, they break up the gray and make the MOC more exciting, as well as adding some realism becuase they seem to serve a purpose. The little details are also well placed and make the MOC even more realistic. My favorite little touch, however, would probably be teh side doors. The shapes for the open spots when just very very well done. Over-all you have created a nice MOC, that looks damn close to being real. Good work. My only suggestion for the next time would be to not use that glass, and just leave the place where glass should be blank. I realize that LEGO doesn't give you a betterchoice for the glass, but the wierd thicker looking parts betwee nthe bricks is disorienting, if only a little. Other than that (tiny) nitpicck, it's fantastic!

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Wow, this is just ncedible! I love all the little details you paid attention to to make this a beautiful aircraft! amazing work

Thank you. Building aircraft and helicopters offers fun on several levels. I enjoy building the shape, but I also enjoy fiddling around with details. Naval helicopters in particular tend to have all kinds of stuff mounted on the outside.

Very well done. The little highlights of color are what make this MOC really well done, they break up the gray and make the MOC more exciting, as well as adding some realism becuase they seem to serve a purpose. The little details are also well placed and make the MOC even more realistic. My favorite little touch, however, would probably be teh side doors. The shapes for the open spots when just very very well done. Over-all you have created a nice MOC, that looks damn close to being real. Good work. My only suggestion for the next time would be to not use that glass, and just leave the place where glass should be blank. I realize that LEGO doesn't give you a betterchoice for the glass, but the wierd thicker looking parts betwee nthe bricks is disorienting, if only a little. Other than that (tiny) nitpicck, it's fantastic!

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. What I really wanted to use was a train window frame with a regular clear piece of 'glass', but sadly the frames don't exist in dark bley. Obviously what I did now is a compromise, but I felt it looked better with some transparent bricks than without. If I could have, i would have added glass to the front doors as well.

Another great job Ralph.

You keep amazing me.

If I may offer a new challenge; try the Air Force AB-412 "Tweety" SAR helicopter from Leeuwarden. That should fit quit nicely in the entire line of your models.

Thanks. An excellent suggestion I agree that it would fit with my collection nicely and actually have already been collecting some pictures and digging out old issues of 'Onze Luchtmacht' to gather info. I used to have a model of a Bell 214 several years ago also built to this scale, so I know it can be done. The cockpit windows will be a bit tricky though. They're more curved than the ones on the Lynx, but it's definitely on my wish list I've also been eyeballing a Cougar.

thanks for chering with us your perfect model of this amazing e classic chopper

regards

Rodrigo

Thank you. Not everybody likes stickers, but then again, not everybody builds military aircraft or helicopters.

Ralph, you've amazed me again! Every detail is just perfect! The only thing that "bothers" me a bit are the pilots...They look so simple next to the Lynx, and aren't the orange unifors the old ones?

I'm glad you like the helicopter. I'm not too keen on the figures either, which is why I didn't post a picture of them here, but don't know what to do about it. They seemed to go down well on flickr, but I'm open to suggestions on how to build better figures on this scale. I have seen pictures of Lynx pilots wearing olive green overalls (no way to do that in LEGO), but as far as I know when they're flying over (cold) water, they still wear a survival suit in international orange, also known as a 'penenpak' in Dutch.

Cheers,

Ralph

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Another great creation Ralph. I love your building style which along with the brick-built windscreen give it a real nostalgic classic Lego feel. I don't mean to say it's old-fashioned! Great creative use of parts too.

Do you keep your models built? That'd make quite an impressive display.